We are massive fans of the Usborne Flap Book series, to which this is the latest addition. They are robust (great for in classrooms, or for when your kids fight over them, as ours do), they are hugely informative, they are exciting to read, and they’re just lovely to look at.

In fact, I think there’s a lot to be said for flaps. They draw out curiosity (who wouldn’t want to know what is hidden behind a flap), they introduce drama to reading (what’s going to be revealed…?) and they keep hands busy (great if your reader isn’t one who likes to sit still), so See Inside Inventions was already looking like a winner, even before we started reading.

And when we did start reading, we loved the book even more: It’s always exciting to read a book and feel you’ve learned lots of interesting things.

To see if See Inside Inventions might be a book for you, why not take this mini quiz and see what you might learn?

Do you know your inventions?

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If you read Usborne's See Inside Inventions, you'll learn everything you need to know to answer these questions. Is it a book that you might have fun learning something from? Press the start button on this 5 question quiz to find out :-)

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Question 1

What did Georges de Mestral and his dog invent?

A

Tinned dog food

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B

A boomerang stick

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C

Toothpaste for dogs

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D

Velcro

E

The Dog whistle

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Question 1 Explanation:

One day in the 1940s, de Mestral returned from walking his dog. Both had come home covered in sticky plant seeds which were covered in tiny hooks. This gave him the idea for a new kind of fastening - what we know today as Velcro

Question 2

What is a Hippomobile?

A

A mobile featuring dancing horses

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B

An early form of car

C

A safe way of transporting Hippos

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D

An early form of bicycle

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E

An invention created by Denis Papin

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Question 2 Explanation:

In 1860 Etienne Lenoir built an early type of car, with an internal combustion engine. He called it the Hippomobile. It wasn't very successful as it moved very slowly.

Question 3

When Scottish inventor John Damian jumped off a wall in 1507, having believed he'd cracked the secret of flight, what happened to him?

A

He fell straight into a dung heap.

B

The wall fell down.

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C

He flew about 3 metres, and is now regarded as one of the earliest inventors associated with flying.

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D

He fell backwards and squashed his wife

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E

He got scared and climbed off the wall, never attempting to fly again.

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Question 3 Explanation:

Yes, sometimes being an inventor doesn't mean you get all the glory.

Question 4

In what way is Twitter like the first telegraph machines? (Choose two answers)

A

Both were invented by someone called Jack.

B

Neither system allows you to type the letter Q.

C

Both have been used to solve crimes.

D

Both allow(ed) only limited length messages (23 characters in the case of the telegraph machine, 140 characters in the case of Twitter).

E

Both are/were based in San Fransisco

Question 4 Explanation:

The Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph machine was not invented by someone called Jack, but Twitter was. In Twitter you can type the letter Q, but this letter was not available on the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph machine. Twitter is based in San Fransisco, but the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph machine was invented in Britain.
Both have been used to solve crimes. Twitter has been used to apprehend a thief (http://jezebel.com/5801933/the-greatest-twitter-crime-solving-story-ever-told) and the telegraph machine was used to capture a murderer.
Both allow limited length messages - yes, 23 characters in the case of the telegraph machine, 140 characters in the case of Twitter

Question 5

What did Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek invent?

A

Waffles

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B

Clogs

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C

An early form of microscope

D

A lifesaving water management system

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E

An early form of bicycle

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Question 5 Explanation:

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 – 1723) invented a new way to make lenses which had a big impact on the development of the microscope.

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Miserable! But look on the bright side! You will learn enormous amounts from Usborne's See Inside Inventions

Poor. I think you should go and reserve Usborne's See Inside Inventions book from you library right this minute!

Not bad! But you'll definitely come away armed with new knowledge if you get hold of Usborne's See Inside Inventions book.

Good work! But you could still learn something more from Usborne's See Inside Inventions book. Not only that, I'm sure you and your kids will have fun reading it.

Wow! You know your inventions! But I'm sure you'll still enjoy the book - it's full of fun drawings and even more information about inventions.

And on Sunday you could find out for yourself about these two books, as I’ll be giving a way a mini-bundle of the two of them…

Image: James Steidl

The section on the invention of the telephone in See Inside Inventions inspired us to make our own tin can telephone. It was with some trepidation that we set out to do this; I couldn’t believe it was really going to work. Yes, I’ve seen people talk about tin can telephones, yes, they are almost a staple of childhood lore, but do they, would they really work for us?

To make our tin can telephone I got two empty tins of Golden Syrup. These tins are ideal because they have reusable lids, and so when you remove the lid, you have an empty tin with no sharp edges.

I then stuck a piece of blu tack on the bottom of the tin, in the centre, and used a bradawl to make a very small hole. You want to make sure that the hole you make is barely bigger than the diameter of the string you are going to use to connect the two tins to each other. By placing blu tack (or modelling clay) underneath, it makes it easy to apply the pressure to create the hole, without damaging your table.

Once the holes were made we threaded kite string through and knotted it on the inside of each tin. And Lo! Our telephones were ready for testing.

To our utter delight, and almost disbelief, the telephones worked really well! The kids thought our voices sounded a little like aliens, but it really was perfectly possible to hold a conversation down the wire.

It was so successful we decided to up the length of wire in our telephones. In the picture below you can see M at the top of the hill listening to her dad (circled in blue) over 100 metres away.

I don’t know whether we just struck lucky in that we had great, safe tins and kite string to hand, or whether tin can telephones are always this successful, but I certainly urge you to give it a go (here are some possible tips on optimizing a tin can telephone). I think it would be a great project to do down a long street, or across a school playground.

8 Responses

Finally getting to read my feeds for the day – head straight to “books” and there you are… This book looks fab – I have glanced at this series but only briefly… (Our library seems to be getting heaps of sort of pink girl series about nothing at the moment and no cool fact books… oh to live in the same country as usborne books!!!)… I know the tin can telephone works… my kids make then with anything container-ish – even paper cups… we have a tall tree at the gate that they climb and it is level with their bedroom about 30 meters away and they can whisper secrets to and fro – fab fun!!! And there are our rockets!!! Thank you – so glad you liked them!!!se7en recently posted..Se7en Make Mini Hobby Horses…

Good excuse to make lots of sticky syrup cakes!
My Child3 taught himself to read largely from ‘How Things Work’ in this series – really good to see another one out. I hope it’s been better edited than the others though, as some of them seem riddled with niggling errors.Elli recently posted..Going Up the Hill

choxbox

Zoe – mainly typos, although I can’t think of any specific ones off-hand. ‘See Inside Your Head’, if I remember rightly, has quite a few. And there’s contradictory information in ‘See Inside Your Body’ about exactly where the villi are located, although as it’s new to me too I can’t remember which one is correct!
But other than that, they’re fantastic books, and definitely up there among Child3’s favourites.Elli recently posted..Going Up the Hill